Headscratchers / Superman & Lois

Superman's Memories

• So, it was established back in Crisis that the Paragons only retain memories of the previous universe, with nothing of the new universe implanted into them. This version of Superman is not one of the Paragons, but had his mind restored by J'onn sometime during Crisis Hour 5. Was it ever established whether the characters retain their memories of the new universe as well as the old universe, or did their memories of the old universe completely overwrite their new universe memories? I ask because Crisis Hour 5 seemed to imply that Clark thought he still had one baby boy and was surprised by having two teenage sons instead. If that's the case, how does he remember when his kids were little?
  • Clark clearly got his Post Crisis memories offscreen after that scene where Lois called him.
    • But the non-Paragons had their Post-Crisis memories as soon as the multiverse rebooted. They needed J'onn to restore their Pre-Crisis memories.
    • Yes. This is probably what happened - J'onn restored Clark's Pre-Crisis memories during Crisis Hour 5. The Pre-Crisis memories dominate Clark's mind, so he's confused when Lois mentions the boys. Eventually, he's able to get over the disorientation from having two sets of memories, and is able to access his Post-Crisis memories. It does raise an interesting question about whether he told Lois about the Crisis or not.
    • Also there are fans who have theorized that this series is taking place on a new Earth due to the divergence of events that the series provides to Supergirl's series.
    • Seemingly jossed: John Diggle shows up at one point to deliver a piece of ARGUS tech to General Lane. He's also fully aware of the multiverse and is still obsessed with that green object he found.
  • As it turns out, they are on a different Earth, and that's not Earth-Prime/Earth-1 Dig.

Morgan Edge and Lena Luthor

• This may be a better topic for Supergirl, but it seems as if Crisis has pretty much erased Morgan's various acts of villiany in that season and, with the recasting, he will no longer be a cartoonish misogynist. Given that the show has established that he is, indeed, still a bad guy, and that Lena Luthor retains her memories of the old universe, shouldn't she be going after Morgan Edge? She's not exactly the type to let bygones be bygones, especially since Morgan's in the same business as LuthorCorp .
  • Lena at the moment has her own problems in National City to worry about Post Crisis Morgan Edge.
  • Also there are fans who have theorized that this series is taking place on a new Earth due to the divergence of retcons that the series provides to Supergirl's series since Kara isn't even mentioned and the events and trials she endured are being ignored here such as Edge being imprisoned after he faced her.
    • This was confirmed in season 2.
  • Edge is also played by a different actor here.

Lois Giving Birth

• So, the whole point of Superman leaving in Supergirl Season 4 was so that Lois could have her kid under the red sun of Argo (speaking of which, is Argo even still around?) in order to avoid Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex. Now, we never actually saw if Baby Jonathan had superpowers before everything got rewritten, but regardless, where did Lois go to give birth Post-Crisis? Did Lex build a red sun projector for her? Obviously, the boys didn't have superpowers when they were babies, but neither Clark nor Lois knew that when she was pregnant and would have likely taken precautions anyway.
  • It's unlikely they went to Lex for help since he's Clark's most prominent enemy and Argo was only revealed to still be around was because Winn Schott used the Harun-El's radiation signature to try to find more of it, and discovered that there was more on a meteor 5 light years away from Earth which was eventually revealed to be the city. Although given the twins were born in 2007 instead of 2018 when Winn found it Pre-Crisis makes it unlikely they were born in Argo in 2007.
    • The reason I mention Lex is that, Post-Crisis, before J'onn gave everyone their old memories back, Lex was a very public ally with both Kryptonians, so I can easily see that version of Clark letting him know his secret identity.
  • Yes, Argo is still around. In the finale of Crisis when talking about the new reality, Kara said, "Argo is even up there," remember?
  • Are we sure the twins were born in 2007? Or does this series take place in 2033?
    • Yes but was Earth 38's Argo which was reborn into Earth Prime's Argo and there are fans who have theorized that this series is taking place on a new Earth due to the divergence of retcons that the series provides to Supergirl's series.
    • Possibly, considering that neither Jonathan nor Jordan are wondering whether Aunt Kara is also not human.
    • Maybe one of the "thousand questions" they had for Clark was "Are we related to Supergirl?". (Also "Does Grampa know you're Superman?" and "
  • As it turns out, they are on a different Earth, and it seems that neither Kara nor Argo exists here. Since neither of the twins exhibited powers until puberty, it doesn't seem to have been an issue here.

The Stranger

• Is the new Luthor a double of Lex or is it a completely different one? Because Lex still exists on Earth-Prime, since he wrote himself into it and made himself a hero.
  • He's an alternate Lex, from a world with an evil Superman.
    • Do we know his name is "Lex"? Maybe he's a child of that world's Lex and a black woman (Kelly Olsen? Amanda Waller?).
  • As it turns out in "Man of Steel," he's actually John Henry Irons.
• Why does Captain Luthor believe that this Superman is destined to destroy Earth-Prime? If he understands how The Multiverse works well enough to travel between universes, shouldn't he be aware that for-want-of-a-nail is a thing? With all the obvious differences between Earth-Prime and his Earth, why is this the one thing that he would assume will be the same?
  • Its likely that he believes that Superman will inevitably turn evil and destroy the world simply because that's what a super-powered Krytonian being would do as per his worldview. Which is not a strange view for a Luthor to have.
  • "Man of Steel" reveals that he comes from a world where Superman did go evil, so it's understandable.
  • Irons is also so caught in his It's Personal thing that he is basically ignoring Edge as the real Big Bad — who can still wipe out humanity even if Irons kills Superman. He can no longer seek revenge on his own Earth, so he's going after the Superman on this one without even caring about who the real villain is. It would not be any different if a survivor from Earth-X went after Supergirl just because Overgirl killed their loved ones. In fact, Irons has actually been unthinkingly helping Edge by providing a lethal threat that keeps Superman distracted from what Edge is doing.

Superman Can Hear Everything

• While it's cool that Superman can hear disasters across the globe, wouldn't they be over and done before the sound got to him? Sound is way slower than light.
  • Depends on how long the disaster takes. Can he respond to a car crash halfway across the world? No, but he can respond to a tidal wave or something.
  • Also bear in mind that sound travels much faster through solid mediums than it does through the air, such as the Earth itself. Might not make a huge difference for most things but it would for earthquakes, tidal waves, volcanic eruptions and probably even large structural collapses like the bridge in China.

Everyone ignoring Superman's cousin?

• As of this writing, the first 7 episodes has aired. From what's been shown so far, it seems like Edge is using the X-Kryptonite to revive Kryptonians in human bodies (kinda like the elves in Black Clover) and likely somehow used that to corrupt that Earth's Clark into being evil. That's why John is specifically trying to kill Clark even though Prime!Superman hasn't gone evil. However, Kara is never mentioned as being a part of Edge's army, Edge himself doesn't seem concerned with her, and as far as we've seen, John hasn't investigated her at all. Wouldn't she be a concern to both Edge and John?
  • It seems like this show is basically ignoring Kara's show altogether, hence why, for example, she never shows up at the funeral for Martha. Also, if the timeline matches up, she may be stuck in the Phantom Zone, meaning that she's essentially off the board anyway.
  • Apparently, there were a bunch of nods to Kara, both via pictures and via dialog, but the crew was ordered to cut them out of the show in order to be more stand-alone. Which kind of fails considering Diggle shows up, but whatever.
  • As it turns out, they are on a different Earth, and that's not Earth-Prime/Earth-1 Dig.

No DEO or ARGUS?

• When Supergirl came back Post-Crisis, it was shown that the DEO was still around and in charge of alien matters, and I want to say ARGUS was mentioned in Flash or Legends Post-Crisis. However, in this series, it's the military proper assisting Clark and handling meta matters. I know Lex is no longer in charge of the DEO after what happened in Supergirl, but it's still a government agency that they'd want to have around in some fashion. So why wasn't Tag in ARGUS custody and why isn't Sam even alluding to the DEO?
  • As noted above, it seems like this show is basically doing its own thing outside the wider Arrowverse.
  • It seems ARGUS does exist, since Dig comes to Smallville at General Lane's request to deliver an item on Lyla's behalf. So it definitely seems to take place on Earth-Prime despite all the retcons.
    • Unless it's another Earth's Diggle...

Confirmed by the Season 2 finale.

Lucy Lane?

• Is Lucy Lane still around Post-Crisis? Obviously, if she ever shows up she likely won't be played by her Supergirl actress Jenna Dewan, but I'm curious if she's actually still around. Lois mentions her troubled childhood under her dad, but always phrases it as though she is an only child, rather than having a sister of a similar age.
  • Given the sheer amount of continuity snarls and retcons between this show and Supergirl, I wouldn't count on her showing up.
  • She appears in Season 2 with Jenna Dewan reprising the role.

Oliver Queen has failed this reboot.

• What was Oliver thinking in not only bringing back Morgan Edge, but making him a Kryptonian to boot? Was this revenge for Kara and Barry beating him in that one scene in Invasion! (2016) because he doesn't have any superpowers? Did he and Lois Lane once have a relationship back in the day and she dumped him for Clark? Or did he hate the Supergirl (2015) version of Edge THAT much?^note  Don't take this entry seriously. I'm just having fun.
  • This show is on a different Earth.

The "Eradicator", really?

So we all know that calling Lara's device The Eradicator is a Shout-Out and Mythology Gag. But seriously, In-Universe, why would Lara call an invention intended to preserve peoples' consciousness something like "The Eradicator"?

• Because it is what it does, it eradicates a subject consciousness to allow a Kryptonian upload. The name doesn't make sense for the original character either, since it Kryptoforms other planets, thus, creates instead of destroying, and it's also responsible for the creation of the Fortress of Solitude. The real deviation from the comics is that even though you could buy the consciousness override, humans shouldn't be able to store solar power anyways, and then the change would be at the genetic level, thus irreversible. You could reverse the mind, but the people would still retain the powers. Comic Book Eradicator doesn't override Clark's memories, he just removes the "human morals" and implants Kryptonian directives.
• Maybe Zeta-Rho was the one who named it.
• The Eradicator itself doesn't give them powers, the harvested X-Kryptonite that Edge uses in combination with it does.

Kryptonians know how to use their powers?

• How is it that the Kryptonian minds downloaded from the Eradicator seemed to immediately know how to use their superpowers? They did not have these powers on Krypton because of its red sun. Clark and Edge both had to practice in order to master their abilities, which took time. Yet a bunch of stored minds that were recorded on Krypton are able to start using their powers without any problems like being overwhelmed by their enhanced senses?

Kryptonians in humans can even use powers?

• How is it even possible that the Kryptonian minds can use powers while inside a human body? Aren't Kryptonians able to use powers because their bodies behave differently from humans? It doesn't seem like the Eradicator changes people's biology since the hosts don't show signs of having powers when they're in control or after they've been freed. Are you saying Powers Are Mental?
  • That's what the X-Kryptonite is for. It gives whoever's exposed to its radiation the powers of Kryptonians.
  • Although no explanation is given for why the people used as Kryptonian vessels instantly lose their powers when their human personalities regain control.

So...what happens to The Daily Planet?

• Edge was the owner of The Daily Planet when the show started, but then got outed for a supervillain and a Kryptonian. So, since he got arrested, what exactly will happen with the news company? Are they going to be investigated by the government to see who knew what and when? Sold to a new billionaire?
  • We'll probably have to wait until Season 2.
  • No one's mentioned what happened since; most likely someone else high up in the organization took it over and Lois just wasn't interested in returning.

Where the hell is the Justice League?

• Why doesn't it occur to anyone to contact the JL? A potential Kryptonian invasion is most definitely a League-level threat.
  • Same reason the other heroes seldom call on each other for help—it would be too much of a storybreaker otherwise. In-universe, they were probably either busy (Kara in the Phantom Zone, J'onn covering National City in her absence, both of them fighting Lex and Nyxly, Barry with losing his powers and the new forces, Jefferson with Tobias) or they wouldn't be able to make much of a difference (Ryan, the Legends, plus Ryan isn't the Batwoman the others know).
    • For that matter, it's unclear if even Barry and Jefferson would make any difference—as we saw in Invasion, Barry's lightning barely even bothers a Kryptonian, and even if Jefferson could hurt a Kryptonian with his lightning, he'd be practically useless against an enemy with super speed.
  • Of course, that doesn't explain why J'onn and/or Kara can't super speed their way over and spend a little time in Smallville, but hey.
  • The Season 2 finale finally explains it as this is a completely different Earth where none of these heroes exist, or at least not as superheroes.

Daddy issues

• Why does Edge remain loyal to his scumfuck of a father despite Zeta-Ro being just as bad as the people who tortured/experimented on him?
  • Sadly, abusers in real life often manage to maintain a kind of twisted loyalty by twisting and manipulating their victims so that they feel like they're the only ones they can trust. It's tragic and monstrous, but not unrealistic.

Zod

• Why would the Zod on John Henry's Earth be wearing the S-shield on his costume? As some kind of "fuck you" to Superman's legacy?
  • In Supergirl, it's established as being the crest of the House of El. Possibly Zod is part of the House of El in that continuity?

S-shield

• Yes, it's a fun Mythology Gag that Supes started out with the S-shield from the Fleisher cartoons. But in-universe, why would he think "Yes, the crest of the House of El, as worn by the hologram of my father, would make a great chest symbol ... but maybe I'll make it more art-deco and see how that looks first"?
  • His mother made it for him, probably based on a description more than a first-hand look.

Investigative Reporters?

• Clark and Lois are supposedly famed investigative reporters, yet they often seem completely clueless. Especially with regards to the entire situation involving Jonathan, Candice and the X-K. Lois caught Jon getting it on with Candice at the beginning of the season, and he is still seeing her. Yet neither of them appears to even suspect that the reason that Jon won't reveal who he got the X-K from is because it was his girlfriend. How did they ever manage in their careers?
  • First of all, he could've gotten it from anyone on the football team, or any of his friends from class, or even a guy he kinda knows who sits across from him at lunch. Candice isn't the only person he hangs out with. Secondly, they're good enough reporters to know that even if they suspect it's Candice, they can't go in front of the school board and say "we suspect it's her." Given that American law generally works on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty," unless Jon actually flat-out says "Yes, I got it from Candace," their suspicions will be just that: impossible to prove suspicions.
  • None of that accounts for why Jonathan would be so determined to cover for any of those people. You are also wrong, Clark and Lois absolutely could go to the school board with their suspicions about Candice, because the school board is not a court of law and "innocent until proven guilty" does not apply to them. Jonathan is being exploited by his classmates and teammates to take the fall for them even though some, like Timmy, were taking X-K even before he was. Now that Jonathan is a social pariah who has to take classes from home, the only person who is still close to him is Candice. Considering that X-K grants temporary super powers and makes users behave violently, Clark does not even need to involve the police, because the DoD are the ones trying to secure the mines and control the spread of the stuff. Sam would love to know about the Candice connection.

How Is This Not Familiar?

• While kids using X-Kryptonite is the hot new thing in Smallville this year, it seems rather odd that Lana, when she was abducted by Jonathan-El, who was acting completely bizarre, did not immediately associate her situation with the events of last year. Morgan Edge downloaded Kryptonian minds into numerous citizens of Smallville, including Lana's husband Kyle, which would seem to bear a greater similarity to Jonathan-El's behavior than to Jonathan Kent just being whacked on X-K. You would have expected her to make that connection even more strongly than just the Jonathan she knows well being hyped up on X-K and wondering if somehow Morgan Edge (whose exact fate seems to be a DoD secret) might be up to his old tricks again.
  • Presumably the DoD put out a "nothing to worry about, he's in custody, this won't happen again" kind of bulletin to stop people worrying. Obviously, they won't see anything about Edge being Tal-Rho, but Smallville's citizens would want to know that the government has things under control.
  • They didn't trust the DoD when the DoD was encamped on their main street! Why would they trust (or even believe) some bulletin put out by them?
  • Well, that combined with the fact that everything died down would probably make them inclined to believe it. Plus, Lois most likely published a piece in the Gazette quoting a "classified source" or something.

What About Those Without Doubles?

• When Prime Anderson comes through the portal to Bizarro Earth, he almost immediately begins to merge with his double because he has the pendant. Furious that her own double has not come through, and that she won't be the first to merge, Ally has Jonathan-El murder Bizarro Anderson (her own loyal follower) to permanently prevent the two Andersons from ever merging. Likewise, because Bizarro Lana Lang married Tal-Rho instead of Kyle Cushing, her Prime counterpart's daughters, Sarah and Sophie, have no Bizarro equivalents. So clearly not everyone has a double due to different circumstances on the two Earths. What do people who take Ally's drug cocktail see when they have no counterpart on the opposite Earth? What does Ally intend for those who cannot merge because they have nobody to merge with?
  • Most likely the vast majority of people have counterparts, so she probably doesn't care about those without one.

Selective Super Hearing

• Given all that Clark talks about the "collective sonic frequency" and how he (along with Jordan) can seemingly hear things all around the world, how is it that they never noticed Onomatopoeia in the past? Her Super-Scream should be pretty noticeable, especially when she uses her powers in places like Metropolis or Smallville. Yet it seems as if Clark was oblivious to her even when he lived in Metropolis, and he didn't notice her attack Lana and John at the mayor's office in Smallville, nor the murder of the previous mayor. How has she kept a low profile all this time given that Clark has a power that seems ideally suited to detecting somebody like her?
  • It seems that, to a certain extent, Clark's super hearing is selective, otherwise he'd constantly be listening to everything all the time. So he has it "tuned in" to hear certain sounds/frequencies (natural disasters, the voices of his loved ones, the frequency of the thingymabob people use to summon him), and otherwise keeps it mostly dialled down unless he's actively listening for something. It seems like Onomatopeia's attacks are fairly brief, no more than several seconds usually, then she skedaddles. Since he didn't know to listen for her, she would've slipped under the radar, and even if he did investigate, there's no guarantee he would be able to find her, especially if she's not wearing the suit and just looks like a normal person. Beyond that, it may be a case of "the plot needs it to be that way."

Finding out that Superman is Clark

• Ally's tea gives people glimpses of the lives of their Bizarro selves. Kal-El is a Celebrity Superhero in the Bizarro world who is known to be married to Lois Lane and father to Jonathan and Jordan. Wouldn't it be likely that at some point one of Ally's followers would tune into their other self at a moment where they were looking at an image of the El family together on TV or in a magazine? And thus learn that Kal-El's other self must be Clark Kent if he has the same sons, and therefore Clark is Superman? Especially Lucy, if Bizarro Lucy is doing anything related to her sister?
  • It's possible, but the likelihood of one of Ally's followers drinking the tea at the exact moment that one of their other selves is looking at a magazine/watching a TV program showing Bizarro!Clark's family is fairly low. Even if Lucy does happen to look at her other self doing something relating to her sister, it's not guaranteed that she'll see something that reveals that Clark has powers (she could as easily see Bizarro Lucy talking to Bizarro Lois about football, for example). So, yes, it is theoretically possible, but the chances of Clark's secret getting out that way are fairly low.
  • Chrissy only remembered significant detail about Bizarro world because she had used hallucinogens before. Most people who hadn't probably would not remember much beyond a general sense of things. So they would not likely come out of the trip with detailed memories of life on the other Earth. Which is just as well because Ally could not predict what kind of people their other selves were (or if they even had other selves there). It wouldn't do for them to be put off by what they saw. Bizarro didn't use the Clark Kent name on that Earth anyway, so anything that they perceived when viewing the other world during a hallucination probably didn't give enough detail.
  • Additionally, with the exception of Lucy and maybe a few others, anyone who sees a member of that family in Bizarro world wouldn't have any way of knowing that they also exist in this world or connecting them to the Kents.

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